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Living to Please God

Verse1Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more.

Verse2For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

Verse3For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality;

Verse4each of you must know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

Verse5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God;

Verse6and no one should ever violate or exploit his brother in this regard, because the Lord will avenge all such acts, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you.

Verse7For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness.

Verse8Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit.

Verse9Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

Verse10And you are indeed showing this love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more

Verse11and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you.

Verse12Then you will behave properly toward outsiders, without being dependent on anyone.

The Return of the Lord

Verse13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope.

Verse14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

Verse15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.

Verse16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise.

Verse17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Verse18Therefore encourage one another with these words.